Six diesel mechanics woke up on July 4th as free men. Their crime under the Biden administration: tampering with emissions systems on vehicles — or, as normal people call it, fixing their own trucks.
President Trump signed the pardons on Independence Day and posted them to Truth Social with three words that doubled as policy: "I AM SETTING THEM ALL FREE, RIGHT NOW!"
The six were prosecuted under the Clean Air Act for installing what the EPA classifies as "defeat devices" — modifications that alter or remove emissions control systems. Under the Biden-era Department of Justice, that was enough to turn working mechanics into federal defendants. The presidential memorandum Trump signed on June 29, titled "Lowering the Cost of Living by Promoting the Freedom to Fix," laid the groundwork. The pardons followed six days later.
"It is my Great Honor to have just signed Pardons for six people who were persecuted by the Biden Administration," Trump wrote on Truth Social. Note the word choice. Not "prosecuted." Persecuted.
The distinction matters because these weren't chop shops running illegal operations. These were guys who knew how diesel engines work and made modifications that vehicle owners wanted. The Biden EPA and DOJ treated aftermarket mechanical work like environmental terrorism.
Trump framed the pardons alongside broader deregulatory action. "We have a big ruling that we're just issuing now. I think it's very important to lower the price of your car," he said. "We are not going to be going after people who are fixing their own vehicle, like past administrations have."
Mike Spagnola, CEO of the Specialty Equipment Market Association, praised the move as "more bold action in support of vehicle owners and automotive aftermarket industry businesses," according to a statement reported by The Epoch Times via ZeroHedge.
The environmental lobby will argue these modifications increase pollution. Fine. That's a regulatory debate worth having. But the Biden DOJ didn't have that debate — it skipped straight to criminal prosecution of individual mechanics. Not the manufacturers of aftermarket parts. Not corporate fleet operators. Guys who turn wrenches for a living.
That's the part that reveals what the Biden-era enforcement was actually about. The Clean Air Act has been on the books for decades. Previous administrations used it to regulate industry. Biden's DOJ used it to make examples out of six working-class Americans who modified diesel trucks. The message wasn't about air quality. It was about compliance.
Trump's memorandum reframes the issue around something the regulatory class never considers: the right of an owner to repair and modify their own property. It's a concept so basic that the fact it needs a presidential memorandum tells you how far the administrative state drifted.
Six guys spent years under federal indictment for doing mechanical work. A presidential pardon on the Fourth of July wiped it clean. The EPA still exists. The Clean Air Act still exists. The only thing that changed is that the federal government stopped treating a socket wrench like a weapon.
